LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME

by Roger Storkamp

  I reentered the closet with my questions for Marty fresh in my mind, my tele-presence appeared in deep space alongside her image, but the voice remained distinctively Sera’s. She, either Marty or Sera, rambled answers to my memorized list, as if I had given them to her in advance. I doubted whether any separation still existed between Sera’s personality and Marty’s memory. I’d have preferred observing Sera’s image to study her face for tics. However, she had no reason to fabricate Marty’s story, and I abandoned all effort to keep secrets from Sera, except possibly our plans concerning Mission One safely tucked in the recesses of my consciousness.

  Unlike our earlier encounter, I could interact directly with what appeared to be Marty, hologram to hologram. I reached out and she responded, but our arms passed right through each other. She mouthed her words, but I received them out of sync and in strings, like someone reading spurts of a disjointed biography line-by-line. When a particular point interested me, Marty, still with Sera’s voice, immediately elaborated without my asking for clarification.

  My name is Marty, short for Martha, Haggart, thirtieth in a sequence of daughters following our matriarch, Bertha, not Adam, in the year 2069. Legend has it that she was a sibling to the first woman who left Earth a thousand years ago on a mission to another star in the Milky Way. I have scanned the approximately four thousand messages passed back and forth since then, and learned very little about my distant cousins, and I assume they know even less about us. My mother threatened to stop the exchange because all references to God had been censored. As a newly ordained Catholic priest, immediately following Pope John/Paul XXII’s edict allowing married men and women to become priests, she’d become a religious fanatic. My father is an African scientist equally fanatic about his career. I am a virtual student with the curiosity of a cat.

  I had boyfriends, but I lost interest after undressing a few of them, physically and mentally. The tools God planted on their bodies seem to limit the blood flow to their brains. I have a few girlfriends, but they pay more attention to the boys’ anatomy than toward any of my interests. I became wildly excited when my father decided to pack up my memory in a data string and ship it off to my surrogate sister, with whom I’d corresponded only once. I’d have allowed him to send me, body and soul, if he were able to do it. He said he’d be glad to get rid of me, but I knew he was spoofing.

  I’m not sure what specialty I should pursue next year when my platform education is completed. I may combine my parents’ talents and become a space missionary. Too many of our roving astronauts return to Earth as atheists. Maybe God should remain an earthbound concept. Ariel will have to make her own decision based on the copies of the Old and New Testaments, the Koran and Book of Mormon I sent separately, assuming Dad got them past the censors. My memory could never have contained all that information.

  My—

  Sera, stop! Marty dissolved, and my body tingled as I regained my actual voice. “What did you do with the literature Marty sent?”

  “Have you opened your tutorial lately?”

  Marty’s image morphed into Sera’s, and mine dissolved before I bolted from the coffin-like chamber. Again, Sera anticipated my move before I felt the impulse to react. With my helmet tucked under my arm, I situated myself at my desk computer. Had Sera restored my tutorial, or had Marty’s information found its way into Jimmy’s copy? Crossing my fingers, I stared at the monitor that yet again failed to open.

  Not waiting to enter the closet, I yelled into the headpiece, “Sera!” The indicator light only flickered, so I waited. Cradling the headpiece under my arm and hoisting Cleopatra to my breast with the other, I stared into the darkened closet. After a while, Jimmy appeared, arms flailing and legs kicking as Sera shoved him into her closet to be able to appear in mine. Unlike with Marty who is only a memory, his image could communicate with me directly.

  His eyes widened as his gaze met mine. “Cool!”

  “Jimmy, I need you to open my tutorial and send me some literature.”

  His eyes focused on my alternate breast and I felt like I’d been nursing two babies.

  His gaze moved to meet mine. “It’s my whatever-you-called-it now.”

  “Don’t argue with me. Make a copy of Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, and Book of Mormon and send them via the video cable.”

  “Can I open them to see if there are any naked women?”

  “I doubt you’ll find any in those books.” I considered sending him a video of me naked with Cleopatra squeezing through my vagina, but decided not to disrupt his fantasy of female anatomy.

  “Can I get Albert to help me?”

  “May I get Albert,” I corrected.

  His face screwed into a question mark.

  “Forget it. Just do as I ask and Sera will help you.”

  “I’ll tell Albert. He’d like what you’ve done to my—what did you call it? A tuttoral?”

  “Leave Albert out of this for now. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk to him again.”

  I placed Cleopatra in her crib and stared at my blank monitor. Soon a couple thousand pages stacked onto the screen. I sat at my desk the remainder of the day drinking Dad’s home brew to replenish my milk supply and scrolling through the strangest literature I’d ever encountered. Dizzy, the effects of the beer or the literature I wasn’t sure, I zoned out on my bed, oblivious to any need my child might have throughout the night.

  AUGUST 5, 3152

  SLATS OF MORNING LIGHT cast stripes across my mother’s bathrobe, as she tiptoed into my room. I lay perfectly still and peered through the slit of a single eyelid. She hushed a whimpering Cleopatra, changed her diaper, and carried her out of the room. I didn’t awaken again until noon, concerned that my child would be starving. I entered the kitchen where four other women watched my mother stuff and re-stuff spoons-full of white gritty mush into Cleopatra’s open mouth, she gleefully slapping the tray in front of her. My breasts had become expendable. I sat and accepted the lavish praises the women heaped on my baby and me, quite like everyone in Frank’s sphere had done.

  Later that afternoon, Dad summoned Paul to our apartment.

  “This is to be more than just a social visit?” Paul’s greeting expressed his suspicion, as he entered our kitchen alone.

  I nodded.

  Mother asked, “Is Betty coming?”

  “She’s a bit upset about my impulsive decision to head back to Mission One. She’d sooner have Sally’s parents join us here.”

  Dad said, “Ariel has some new information that might make all of us want to return.”

  Paul frowned. “You mean you guys’ll go with us?”

  Mother said, “We mean all ten families, if they’re able to.”

  Paul sat and reached for the drink Mother had set out for him. “Lay it on me. I didn’t think life could get more interesting.”

  With all attention focused on me, I hedged somewhat. “The Realm on Mission One hasn’t stopped functioning.”

  “That’s good news, but why the wobble?” Paul asked. “Are the gyros out of sync?”

  “It no longer resides there. The Realm’s core computer transported out with Sera and our ten families.” I hesitated to admit Sera had made a conscious decision to abandon an entire population.

  “They’re flying without a pilot?”

  “On auto pilot, sort of, with an aborted mission. Our destination seems to be moving away from us faster than we are approaching it.”

  Paul’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll let Frank and his kid explain that phenomenon. But why remove the Realm from a long-time functioning habitat and place it in an experimental one?” The creases on Paul’s forehead deepened. “Why did Sera allow that to happen?” His eyes widened. “She is the problem.” He shook his head. “I should’ve guessed. She took the Realm computer with her.”

  Dad responded, “Sera is the only Realm. Always has been the Realm.”

  Paul threw up his hands. “All the while she lived with you guys and acted as baby sitte
r for Ariel like Clara does for Sally?”

  Mother glanced from Paul to me. “Sera more-or-less raised me when I was a child, and from my long-time association with her, I gained some insights that might help understand our predicament.” She glanced at the glass in front of her and pushed it away. “I gave her permission to dissect Ariel’s umbilical cord and absorb her DNA.”

  I shrieked, “It enabled her to mimic my features and become my body double.” And I thought nothing would shock me anymore.

  Mother cast her eyes down. “It seemed harmless enough. I had passed my seventieth birthday before obtaining permission to have a child, and I wanted my daughter’s experience to be the most unique ever. Those years Sera resided exclusively in the Stork laboratory, so very few people saw the transformation occur. By the time Ariel was six years old, they’d become identical.”

  “Already back then Sera remained in charge of the Realm. Actually was the Realm.” Paul shook his head. “Why do you suppose she outlawed religion?”

  I said, “The mad scientists who created her were ambivalent about the existence of a god, and after a thousand years of atheism, she actually introduced the concept indirectly through us.”

  Paul slapped his forehead. “Our Fortieth League.” He faced me. “But why?”

  “Once she reached perfection, God would become redundant, but we first needed to accept the concept.”

  Mother’s attention had strayed. She reached for her half empty glass and fingered the rim, creating an eerie sound. “Who can recall our original purpose for forming our group?” She glanced between Dad and Paul, their silence suddenly oppressive. “And I don’t mean the sexual subterfuge we presented to the Realm.” She sipped and returned the glass to the middle of the table. She faced me. “With exception of Bob and Helen, we’d been granted permission to become parents after a sustained period of restrictions on births.”

  Neither of the men’s gazes met hers nor mine, as if something shameful were being discussed.

  She continued. “The innocuous name, Fortieth League, intended to draw attention away from our true purpose, but it made us appear snobbish to the rest of the population.”

  Dad held his hand out to Mother. “We were no different than other people living at similar levels throughout the buildings. They tended to hang out together based on their level of gravity tolerance.”

  Mother responded, “But none of them lived in penthouses like we did.”

  I asked, “If not from the start, when did the group become interested in a divine higher power?”

  “Sera suggested that the heirloom Ariel wears around her neck might have mystical powers. I introduced the concept as an explanation for our having been the chosen few.”

  “Chosen few? Chosen for what?” I asked, glancing and around seeking answers from any one at the table.

  Mother blushed, “Giving birth to genius children.”

  Expressions of agreement changed to shock and possibly anger when she added, “God didn’t cause that to happen. Sera and I artificially engineered their genetic intelligence.”

  Am I as much machine as Sera is human? How much more than just body parts do we share?

  I masked my immediate reaction by probing an issue that bothered me since I met the families on the other side. “Why were Bob and Helen included in the League? They had no children.”

  Mother lowered her eyes. “Their turn to raise a child had been passed over before you were born.”

  The missing piece to my puzzle! “I should have been their daughter?” No wonder their interest in Cleopatra.

  “Of course not. You’re a combination of your father’s and my genes.”

  I blurted, “Enhanced through technology.”

  She blushed and continued, “I felt bad about preempting their place in line and invited them to join the Fortieth League.”

  “Her name would have been Jessica.” I suggested another piece. “My name, if you hadn’t rejected the Realm’s choice.” I frowned. “Why did you choose Ariel over Jessica?”

  “Sera suggested it.”

  “Suggested it?” Like she suggested Albert should name our child Cleopatra?

  Mother shrugged. “I rather liked Jessica but Sera said, ‘This one we’ll call Ariel,’ almost in defiance of the Realm’s tradition of naming babies. After your birth, each couple got to make their own choice.”

  I locked onto her gaze. “You offered Sera my DNA in exchange for taking Helen’s place in line to have a baby. No wonder you felt bad.”

  “I’d been waiting a lot longer than she had, and I already passed the age deadline to raise a child.” Mother touched the back of my hand, and I pulled it away. “I had no idea Sera was the Realm, just that she had a special influence with it.”

  Dad broke an embarrassing silence and redirected the tone of our discussion. “Apparently, Sera had been grooming the league members to join her experimental habitat based on synthetics rather than biology.” Dad shook his head. “Totally unnatural.”

  Paul said, “And she led us to believe we’d been expelled because of the religious threat we presented, even to the extent of erasing religious childhood myths. In actuality, she didn’t care one way or another if we believed in God or not.”

  “And then secretly bringing those stories back through Sally and me.” I decided to shed additional light on the topic rather than mope about the shun Bob and Helen experienced. “Sera gave us copies of those stories and swore us to secrecy, probably to gain our confidence, or maybe to get us back on a quest for God.”

  “Why?” Paul asked.

  Mother responded, “According to Ariel, she desired to become a god.”

  “But she wanted even more to become human.” Time to tell Paul about Marty. “Sera developed a personality stolen from Marty, my Earth sister. Her father intended to penetrate the Realm and reach me, but we no longer resided on Mission One. His program bore through the static block Sera placed between the two Missions, but it became attached to an outdated copy of my tutorial.”

  Paul’s gaze penetrated. “What was the content of his message?”

  “His daughter’s, my sister’s, memory.”

  Paul’s eyes appeared to bug out of their sockets. “You have such a thing? It exists?”

  “Yes. But I can only access it through Sera.”

  He faced me. “What’s it like?”

  “A lot of religious stuff. Her mother is some kind of priest.”

  Paul slammed the table. “We have to stop Sera.” He glared at me. “But how?”

  I responded, “By her own vanity, her desire to become human and God at the same time.”

  “That’s not possible,” Mother said then added, “Is it?”

  “Marty included stories of a man who was God’s son. It tells of his crucifixion on a cross like the symbol you’d given me.” I touched the chain around my neck. Hands reacted and then retracted when I didn’t expose the symbol. “Until I got the correct version, I assumed Jesus was female.” If it were to happen again, she would be female, I assured myself.

  “My cross truly has religious significance?”

  “Yes. The caption reads Jesus our Savior. I was able to fill in the missing letters.”

  “Whoa! Let’s reconnoiter.” Paul raised his index finger. “Sera will allow us to experiment with religion.” Middle finger upright. “Mission Two might be able to self-sustain indefinitely.” He paused with two fingers extended. “Did you say we can never reach the star we’re aiming for?”

  “We need to increase our speed tenfold.”

  “Nearly two thousand miles a second? That’s not possible even if we still had a propulsion system.”

  “According to Sera, we don’t push. Dark energy of the universe will suck us through space.”

  Paul raised his ring finger and pinky. “We leave Mission One behind in the dust.” His lone little finger drooped. “A thousand people die.”

  “That’s why you and Frank must return to lead them,” Mother p
leaded.

  Paul stood. “All the families must return. I’ll talk to Frank immediately.” He paused. “Will Sera allow . . .?” He slid back in his chair. “Of course not. She can’t. We’re the reason she’s still going there. How much time do we have to make a plan?”

  I said, “Two-to-three years when Albert’s transit tube connects the two habitats. Until then the bulk of our population will remain separated.”

  “And who knows how far off course Mission One will wander in the meantime,” Paul pondered aloud.

  “Or be able to sustain itself. Food, water, air.” Dad faced Paul. “How long can support systems function without the Realm?”

  Paul clasped his forehead as if nursing a headache. “You might have a better understanding of that. It will function as a natural biosphere, as long as there is hydrogen available for fusion. If other systems fail, chaos and ultimate rioting would be their greatest danger. Hopefully, they won’t feel the effects of an absent Realm, if the droids continue to perform their duties.” He faced me. “How much of our decision are we able to keep from Sera?”

  I answered, “Everything we do or say on this side. Nothing including individual thoughts is safe from her scrutiny on Frank’s side.”

  “How do you communicate other than through the video cable me and Frank installed?”

  Dad chuckled, “A wash line on pulleys that Ariel strung between us and them. But you have to step outside to use it.”

  Paul faced me. “What happens to our wireless messages we send to Mission One?”

  “They pass through the channel Marty’s father created and probably continue on to Earth. In about two years we will know for sure.”

  “Unless Sera stops them.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think they matter to her anymore.”

  “However, the console is on Frank’s side, and you say he has no immunity to Sera’s clairvoyance.”

  “Again, I don’t think she cares.” I added, “Rather than discuss the problem with Frank, let me try to communicate with Albert.”